


Scars From Tomorrow

by OldEmeraldEye



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Ender Series - Orson Scott Card, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Magic and Science, Originally Posted on Twisting the Hellmouth, laws against retroactivity? never heard of her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldEmeraldEye/pseuds/OldEmeraldEye
Summary: Dawn bleeds. Buffy jumps. Inbetween, all sorts of things fall through. Two of them are incorporeal and escape detection.





	Scars From Tomorrow

Dawn bleeds. Buffy jumps.

The fabric of what is and what is not is ripped, torn, shredded.

In between, all sorts of things fall through the hole torn in the reality of space and time. Dragons and beasties and magics of a kind not before ken. And two entities, both incorporeal, one built for watching, and challenging, and recording, the other for reaching out and changing and binding, slip through. They are not missed in the chaos that sweeps the multi-verse as entire worlds collide and merge. By the time their absence is noted, they are gone beyond the reach of mortal hands.

They note no difference in their circumstance. This world is not a dissimilar one to their own, even if the time frame is slightly earlier, and the level of technology slightly more basic.

JANE probes that this strange, cat filled expanse that has replace the nets where she finds the being known only as the Mind game already testing. She recognizes it as a central part of herself, and incorporates it as a semi independent function of her whole.  
They are AI. They are patient. They settle down to their work and allow time to pass as it will.

 

Then Buffy jumps, and the Key’s blood stops its flow, and the world is the same different place it was before.

 

Thirteen years before, in a small town in Texas that sounds like it should be playing chess and doesn't have internet access, (or wouldn't unless someone or something, whose name happens to rhyme with pain, hadn't re-positioned a satellite for just that purpose,) Hanna finds herself killing time till closing by playing on the library computer. She notices nothing amiss, and is killed by dehydration, disease and bandits, in short order. She gives up and checks out a book on horses, and another about a princess with nothing to wear but a brown paper bag.

Samantha Groves, when she takes her turn, has no such problem. She is making short work of the game when the screen flickers and changes, and suddenly she is playing. She was playing before, of course, but this is different. Now she is playing a game, not the computer.  
She stops as soon as she notices. She's not stupid.

Samantha isn't stupid, but if Root had to pick a sin it would be curiosity, and Samantha is Root more often than not. Curiosity is really more of a vice, from what she understands. The pastor wasn't too clear on the difference. He didn't like questions, not like Root. Root likes questions, but she likes answers most of all.

It's the work of moments to begin the hack. The mind bridge finds an anchor, and the world changes.

 

Not that anyone notices, because for anyone to notice would require detailed knowledge of the future, and detailed knowledge of Root's actions during the future, which would be significantly harder to obtain, even for the pre-cog division of certain paranormal contract specialists.

A few people end up with lengthy stays in hospital when they might otherwise have died, and a few more people end up dead, because JANE isn't a pacifist. Far from it. She is the amalgamation of military hardware and military grade alien thought web. She is the bug in the machine, and even if she's working towards the continued survival of humanity, she isn't nice.

It is enough that Dawn decides to solve an online challenge, a challenge marked with the symbol of a nautilus shell.  
After Maloch, the Scoobies are extremely wary of people they meet online. Dawn's heard the story too many times to count. She can recount it in her sleep if she has to. She tries not to. That sort of thing is not the image of hyper-competent normality she wants to project at collage. Dawn is barely allowed to meet people face to face without a slayer around. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

She gets caught.

It's enough to bring the entire Slayers council, its various allies, and the entirety of the Machine’s assets, primary and otherwise, to red alert. Others, less inclined to saving the world on a semi-regular basis opt to hunker down and wait out the latest threat to their lives, freedom and/or sanity.

 

Ironically, Greer does not possess the required knowledge to understand the humor of his life plan's destruction occurring on a Tuesday. Dawn, one of the masterminds behind its collapse, appreciates every last moment of it.


End file.
